The present invention relates to fishing rod holders and more particularly to an assembly securable to the stern of a boat to support a plurality of rods for trolling.
Heretofore, a fairly wide variety of supports or rod holders have been proposed. Generally, such holders are clamped to the gunwale of a boat and support a single fishing rod. Examples of such may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,156,982 entitled SUPPORT FOR FISHING ROD and issued on June 5, 1979 to Phillips; U.S. Pat. No. 3,444,643 entitled CONTROLLING AND SENSING DEVICE FOR PLURAL TROLLING RODS and issued on May 20, 1969 to Dobbs; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,017,149 entitled FISHING ROD REST and issued on Jan. 16, 1962 to Bossert. Such rod holders are primarily adapted for limited trolling or for stationary fishing.
In sport fishing, such as that practiced on the Great Lakes, it is common practice to use downrigger devices when trolling. The fishing line of the rod is secured to the downrigger line through a downrigger release. The downrigger is mounted adjacent the stern of the board and in close proximity to the rod holder. When trolling with multiple lines and multiple downriggers, problems are presented with efficient location of the downriggers and rods due to limited mounting areas. Available rod holders do not readily permit the use of multiple rods, nor are they readily integrated with downrigger devices. Further, problems are presented with the entanglement of the lines from the various rods.
Attempts have been made to increase the ease of mounting multiple fishing rods adjacent the stern of the boat. An example of one such approach is found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,157,803 entitled FISHING ROD HOLDER and issued on June 12, 1979 to Mack. This patent discloses a fishing rod holder device which includes an extensible telescoping body adapted to extend between the gunwales of the boat. Secured to the body are a plurality of tubular rod holders. Each of the rod holders includes a set screw-like clamping device to secure the fishing rod within the holder.
A need exists for a trolling assembly which is adapted to mount a plurality of fishing rods in an efficient manner, which is adjustable to fit a wide variety of boats, which is mountable in a secure fashion and which may be adapted to support downrigger devices and the like.